


Dawn Guard

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [9]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Morning After, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: “Please, don’t leave.”Nyx bit down on a moan of frustration, thinking to himself, Don’t ask me that. You know you can’t ask me that because that’s exactly what I’ll do. He knew that looking at him would be a mistake, but damn him if he didn’t do that, too.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156648478692/noctnyx-for-number-3) for #3 in [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156511645930/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you)

Nyx impressed himself every morning that he managed to tear himself away from the warm body sleeping next to him. He didn’t think he was capable of that kind of willpower, not when Noctis was so magnetic even in his sleep. Tousled hair splayed against the pillows, the pink marks he’d left on him last night fading with the dawn light, lips barely parted to tug at soft breaths, in and out. There was a magic about him when he slept like that, pale skin unmarred by the nightmares in his head; a portrait of blissful peace.

Nyx hated having to break the spell, carefully sliding out from under Noctis’s arm. He tried to be as quiet as his stealth training taught him to be, picking through the tangled piles of clothes across the floor in the dimness. The curtains were drawn against the sunlight, muting the prince’s bedroom with dull gray light. He didn’t expect Noctis would be waking up for another few hours, not until well after the dawn guard’s rotation.

Nyx paused as he was pulling on his boots at the edge of the bed, glancing down at Noctis as he stirred beneath the sheets. The chill left behind by Nyx’s absent body sent a small whimper of discontent through him before he blinked his eyes open to the empty space. Noctis’s bleary blue eyes found his in the gloom, and Nyx smiled by way of greeting and apology.

“Sorry, was trying not to wake you.”

Nyx buckled up his shoes and pulled on his shirt as Noctis pushed himself up, pressing the heel of his palm against his eyes to force away the fatigue. Nyx felt his eyes on his back and it was almost harder to ignore that than get out of bed in the first place. Harder even to hear the foggy croak of Noctis’s voice.

“Where are you going?”

“Crack of dawn shift on the guard rotation, remember?”

Noctis was quiet behind him and Nyx forced himself not to look back, instead pulling on his kingsglaive coat and pushing to his feet to straighten through all the buttons. In his peripheral he could see Noctis, sheets around his waist and arms folded on his knees, watching his movements. If it was hard enough leaving when Noctis was asleep, it was nearly impossible to do once he was awake. But they both knew that he couldn’t stay. Not in the Citadel, not when the prince’s chambers were so frequently visited in the mornings.

Nevertheless…

When Nyx turned to the door, unsure if saying “goodbye” would make it worse or not, he felt Noctis’s fingers curl around his, squeezing into his palm.

“Please, don’t leave.”

Nyx bit down on a moan of frustration, thinking to himself, _Don’t ask me that. You know you can’t ask me that because that’s exactly what I’ll do._ He knew that looking at him would be a mistake, but damn him if he didn’t do that, too.

He felt a knot form in the pit of his chest, seeing him there, alone in the bed, eyes avoiding his and resigned to the fact that he had to leave, but still holding onto him anyway. He was as still as a snowfall and as quiet as it, a pale, untrodden void before the world awoke to chase it all away. His voice came out in a delicate whisper, careful and fearful that if he said it too loud, something might break.

“I mean… Do you have to go?”

“You know that I have to.”

“Do I?”

Noctis blinked, eyes squeezed tightly shut for a moment before trying to bring his gaze up to meet his. They were electric in the ashen dawn, gleaming as crystalline as the power coursing through his blood. Nyx wanted nothing more than to smooth his fingers through the dark hair which covered them and just stare for hours, committing to memory the most finite details of that deep, dark blue. But not now, he told himself, drawing in enough air to buoy the next few words.

“They’re expecting me, you know that I…”

“If it’s not the dawn guard, it’s something else.”

“Noct, come on…”

“You said that you loved me, right?”

Nyx shut up, his gaze turning intent as he watched Noctis, seeing that something was wrong in the taut line of his shoulders, the trembling of his fingers around his, and the way his stare couldn’t seem to hold his no matter how hard he tried to make it.

“It doesn’t feel like you do when you leave,” Noctis whispered, head hanging low and letting his hand slip from Nyx’s to bunch into the bedsheets. “It feels…”

He bit his lip, not wanting to say it. Nyx could hear the words anyway. It felt cheap. It felt callous. It felt shameful. It felt like it took away any meaning to the sex, that the separation in the morning was stealing it away from them both. Noctis began to shrink beneath Nyx’s gaze, biting his lip raw and words shaking as he tried to salvage this, thinking he’d made a horrible mistake. That everything he’d ever been warned about speaking his mind was being proven true, and that it would cost him if he didn’t start groveling, compromising, doing anything to please the affronted party and earn back their favor. Political hula hoops that he was constantly forced to spin through until he was left reeling and wasted.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound so clingy, it’s stupid…”

“Hey, it’s not stupid, okay?” Nyx knelt down in front of him, taking both of his hands in his. “It’s how you feel, and I’m sorry that I’m the one that made you feel it.”

Noctis pressed his lips together, shoulders bunched up near his neck, withdrawing into himself like he always did when he’d made a mistake and Nyx _loathed_ it. Especially when it was him that was messing this all up. He reached a hand up to push his hair out of his face, smirking in amusement at how hard Noctis kept trying to avoid his gaze.

“I do love you,” he promised, stroking his thumb down his face. “And I’m gonna make this up to you. Today and all of the other days.”

That got his attention, lured his eyes up to his again, searching for some kind of certainty that he hadn’t asked too much of him. Nyx pressed a kiss to his temple, giving him the approval he craved so badly.

“My neighbors are gonna be away this weekend,” Nyx told him, like an informant trading out state secrets to the enemy. “So, what do you say you sneak on over to my place, I lock all the doors, you and I find new and inventive ways to destroy my mattress, and when we’re done, you can sleep in, I’ll cook you breakfast, and I’ll give you the morning after you deserve.”

Noctis gave a breathy little laugh, bumping his nose with his own. “You can’t cook.”

“I can fry an egg,” Nyx defended himself, pausing to think through everything else in his limited repertoire. “Ooh! And bacon, I can do bacon.”

“Mm, you sure know you’re way around a man’s heart, don’t you?”

Nyx felt the knot in his chest slowly start to unravel as Noctis’s laughter began to smooth. This thing like love between them was dangerous. If the public ever found out – if _the king_ ever found out – it would be a tabloid feeding frenzy, something Nyx wanted to spare Noctis from far more than he did himself. The pressures of society were already so weighty on the prince, and Nyx knew keeping this a secret was hard on him, but that it being told would be even harder. Which was why he had to kiss his cheek and stand up and try not to hate the emptiness he felt as he left him behind.

“I’ll see you then, okay?” he said, slipping away.

“Wait!”

Nyx tried to object as Noctis gripped his arm and tugged him back, but the prince kneeled up on the bed, caught either side of his face in his hands, and pushed a long, deep kiss into his mouth. Despite the clock in his head nagging against it, Nyx folded his arms around him, covering his naked skin with the fabric of his uniform. Noctis’s arms and his shoulders curled in towards Nyx’s chest, thumbing half circles into the corners of his mouth and breathing Nyx deeply into himself.

When Noctis parted from him, his face stayed close, eyes dark with desire and smiling playfully. “Until then,” he said.

A groan threatened to escape Nyx, lips mouthing over Noctis’s before he reined it in and forced himself to the door. When he chanced a glance back, Noctis was laid back in bed, his arms folded under the pillows and his back bared to Nyx. There was a coquettish wile to his smile that Nyx had no idea was deliberate or not, but it made a shuddering sigh rack through his whole body as he turned through the door, Noctis laughing lightly as he left.

The weekend could not come fast enough.


End file.
